Devon Sawa

Three lifelong cheaters wise up in this gross-out college comedy, which marks the second feature role for Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman. It's the last semester of senior year for roomies Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel), and Jeff (Michael C. Maronna), a trio of twenty-somethings whose enthusiasm for higher learning is matched only by their enthusiasm for root canals performed without the aid of anesthesia. As such, their entire collegiate existence has been an elaborate series of cons and scams designed to plagiarize essays, skip midterms, and covertly manipulate bell curves. When deranged geek Ethan (Schwartzman) -- who harbors a psychotic fixation for a flaxen-haired co-ed named Angela (James King) -- gets wind of their scheming, he blackmails Dave and the gang into contriving a date between him and his crush. But as Dave cozies up to Angela, he realizes that no amount of scheming can hide the fact that he's the one that's truly in love. Slackers went by a number of working titles while in production at the ill-fated upstart Destination Films; when Destination went belly-up, the film sat on the shelf for over a year before being picked up for release by Sony's Screen Gems division. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Defense lawyer and all-around sleaze Callum Crane (Bill Pullman) has a nice wife (Joanne Whalley), two daughters by his wife's first marriage, and an obscenely perfect house. He also has a drinking problem and a penchant for sexual assault. The second proclivity is on ample display when Crane meets Sophie (Gabrielle Anwar), the new secretary. After a brief flirtation, they go back to Sophie's apartment, where Crane proceeds to rape her. Within a few days of her rape, Sophie is fired, and Crane is appointed to a federal judgeship. Understandably outraged, Sophie demands that he resign and threatens to go to the police or newspapers with her story. Meanwhile, somewhere on the wrong side of the tracks, car thief Nat (Devon Sawa) has just been released from prison and discovers that his real father is none other than Crane. Deciding that it's high time he met his long-lost father, Nat searches for Crane and finds him just in time to save him from a mugging. Crane believes that his would-be savior is a hardened criminal, and he offers him the contract to kill Sophie. Coincidentally enough, Nat only knows two people in town: Sophie's roommate, Tanya (Angela Featherstone), and Sophie herself. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Teenage burnouts and post-modern slasher films are both raked over the satiric coals in the blood-soaked comedy Idle Hands. Anton (Devon Sawa) is a cheerful but exceedingly non-ambitious 17-year-old stoner who lives to stay buzzed, watch TV, and moon over Molly (Jessica Alba), the beautiful girl who lives next door. However, it turns out that the old cliché about idle hands being the devil's playground has a kernel of truth after all; there's a demonic beast living in his house that has already decapitated Anton's mom and dad (though it takes him a while to notice), and now the Dark Lord Himself has taken possession of Anton's right hand. Before he's entirely aware of what's happening, Anton's demon hand has killed his two best friends, Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub (Elden Henson), though both come back as zombies to keep Anton company. Can Randy (Jack Noseworthy), local metalhead and expert on all things Satanic, figure out what the Evil One has planned next for Anton's digits? Will traveling demon slayer Debi (Vivica A. Fox) vanquish the possessed in time? And most important, will Anton get to go to the big dance with Molly before his hand starts causing trouble again? Director Rodman Flender certainly knows the genres he parodies here; he cut his teeth in horror working for exploitation legend Roger Corman and directed the film Bloody Mutilators as well as episodes of the TV series Tales From The Crypt, while more recently he immersed himself in teenage culture directing episodes of the TV series Party of Five and Dawson's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Vince Vaughn stars in this drama about a single father trying to balance career ambitions against personal responsibilities. In A Cool Dry Place, Vaughn plays Russell, a lawyer in a small town in Kansas who has been raising his five-year-old son Calvin (Bobby Moat) on his own since his wife Kate (Monica Potter) left him without notice. After a year and a half as a single man, Russell is starting to rebuild his personal life and begins dating Beth (Joey Lauren Adams), a pretty veterinarian's assistant who has taken a shine to him. However, Russell's new relationship runs into rough waters when Kate returns, looking to re-establish her relationship with Calvin, and Russell is offered a high-paying job with a law firm in Dallas, TX. Director John N. Smith, best known for Dangerous Minds, shot the Kansas sequences on location in Ontario, Canada; Dallas, however, plays itself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the true saga of the Stouffer brothers, this movie is an unusual combination of comedy film and nature documentary. In the 1960s in rural Arkansas, Marty Stouffer (Jamey Sheridan) grooms his three sons to take over the family auto parts business. But the sons are more interested in animals, photography, racing cars and trucks, and impressing girls. Marty, Jr. (Scott Bairstow) and Mark (Devon Sawa) fight frequently with their stern father over his work demands and their yen for adventure. Finally, their mother Agnes (Frances Fisher) intercedes, and the patriarch agrees to let the two boys take a cross-country trip to film a nature documentary. The youngest son, Marshall (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), stows away in his brothers' van and joins them on their travels. They head west, encountering a variety of animals and surviving many dangerous scrapes. The brothers' wacky exploits contribute to a new kind of participatory nature cinematography. In real life, the Stouffer film was shown on national television in 1977, and all three brothers became documentarians and served as advisers on this film biography. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this romantic adventure, the legend of Robin Hood is updated and greatly revised. This version sets the tale in modern times and centers on the love story between a gifted high-school archer and an attractive, but distressed young woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Four women look back at the girls they used to be in this warm comedy-drama. Author Samantha Albertson (Demi Moore), actress Tina Tercell (Melanie Griffith), gynecologist Roberta Martin (Rosie O'Donnell), and housewife Christina DeWitt (Rita Wilson) are friends from childhood who get together for the first time in years when Christina is about to have a baby. Seeing the old gang sends Samantha down memory lane, as she recalls the summer of 1970, when the girls were 12-years-old and edging into womanhood. Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann) is struggling with the collapse of her parent's marriage, Roberta (Christina Ricci) must deal with the death of her mother, Tina (Thora Birch) is upset over her folks' apparent disinterest in her, and Christina (Ashleigh Aston Moore) is trying to overcome her mother's disinformation campaign about sex. Together, they discuss boys and first kisses, compare notes on the physical and emotional changes they're going through, and have seances where they try to communicate with a boy who died tragically 30 years earlier. Demi Moore, whose character narrates the film, also served as producer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A successful retired jock and his geeky younger brother play out their sibling rivalry by coaching rival little league football teams in this family comedy. Ed O'Neill plays the older brother, Kevin O'Shea, a former Heisman Trophy winner whose gridiron exploits have made him a local hero in his small Illinois hometown. Kevin is the almost unanimous choice to head up the town's Pop Warner football team, and he happily builds an imposing team from the best local players. One of the few objectors is Kevin's young brother Danny (Rick Moranis), an awkward, bespectacled gas station owner who empathizes with the kids rejected from the team, including his own athletic daughter Becky (Shawna Waldron). As revenge, Danny starts his own competing team of misfits, taking on the coaching duties himself. Naturally, despite the total ineptitude of Danny and his players, they eventually find themselves major underdogs in a climactic battle against Kevin's well-trained juggernaut. Director Duwayne Dunham and a team of four screenwriters hit all the expected sports film conventions, throwing in a few innocent romantic subplots and cameos by real football players for good measure. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide